Frozen II: Forest of Shadows by Kamilla Benko - OPTIONAL

Frozen II: Forest of Shadows by Kamilla Benko, 405 pages. Disney Press, 2019. $15.  

Content: Language: G; Mature Content: G; Violence: PG.  

BUYING ADVISORY: EL – ADVISABLE; MS – OPTIONAL  

AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE  

Anna wants to be more helpful to Elsa as Elsa runs the kingdom, but feels like Elsa doesn’t need her help.  When a blight starts to destroy the livestock and harvest of their kingdom, Anna thinks she can find help.  Anna finds a magical room with spells in it, and accidentally unleashes Anna’s worst nightmare, instead of finding a solution.  Anna’s nightmare is in the form of a wolf and it will take Anna and all her friends to find a way to stop the wolf from destroying Arendelle and hopefully heal the livestock and harvest.  

I love Frozen and was intrigued by the idea of an original story with this great setting and characters.  The story line is well done and there is a lot of action, but I wished there had been more of my favorite characters like Kristoff and Olaf.  My biggest debate with this book is the audience because I think elementary kids would be drawn to the characters, but the length and storyline is better suited for middle school grades.  However, would middle school kids be willing to read a novel based on Frozen? 

Reviewer, C. Peterson